Tops in Taste

The dinner menu displays similar range and cutting-edge stuff, like the spaghetti salsiccia with broccoli rape, roasted garlic and spicy sausage, or the seared duck breast with purée of celery roots, lavender and vanilla caramelized pears; the apple and sherry cured pork rib chop with apple brandy demi-glace, polenta cake and apple chutney; soft shell crabs tempura remoulade; seared sea bass with grilled fennel risotto, and the balsamic-glazed, grilled salmon with grilled romaine and black bean ratatouille ($20-$24). Desserts are as impressive as ever.: apple tart with caramel sauce and cinnamon ice cream, peanut butter pie, and a carrot cake that ranks among my all-time favs-it's a Ridgway classic he created in l971 with cream cheese frosting and a garnish of walnuts.

Ridgway has spun away from his various spinoffs but retained Bayside at Naples' eye-pleasing Village at Venetian Bay with a casual ground floor café serving freshly assembled salads, crunchy fried grouper and blackened mahimahi sandwiches and specialties such as roast duck with orange honey glaze, sautéed crab cakes and sesame seed tuna ($9.50-$20.95). On the upper deck with its great views, you can start with lobster-filled spring rolls or escargot vol-au-vent and then have oak-grilled Chilean sea bass with sundried tomato vinaigrette and a great platemate of lobster mashed potatoes; pistachio and macadamia-coated snapper or a selection of fresh fish simply prepared on the oak grill and enhanced with Tony's superlative sauces-herb beurre blanc, roasted red pepper aioli, tropical fruit salsa. ($8.95-$25).

There's more kitchen magic at work on Marco Island where, in the midst of all the modernity of humongous hotels and condominium canyons, Marek's Collier House Restaurant stands out as a shining sentinel of the past. Its walls talk of Marco's first permanent American settlers: schooner captain W. T. Collier and his nine children. Son Bill had his own schooners and also a boatyard, clam cannery and this house, built in 1882. It was reborn more than a century later when chef-proprietor Peter Mareck arrived with wife, Penny, all the way from the Isle of Jersey. Quite a bonanza for Marco! Schooled in London and trained at the Savoy, he was Jersey's top toque, a master of seafood, and he flashes those credentials with such starters as sherry-spiked shellfish bisque, delice of smoked salmon and salmon mousse surrounded by cucumber-dill sauce and sprinkled with salmon caviar ($7.50-$10.50). Follow that with anything from the sea, but think seriously about the pairing of Maine and Florida lobster with Gulf shrimp and local fish steeped in garlic butter, or the filet mignon topped with fresh blue crab and served on garlic creamed potatoes with superlative sauce Béarnaise ($28 and market price).

Heading south, all the way to Everglades City, I have another favorite escape, The Oyster House . The Rod & Gun Club, sporting a new coat of paint, has a lot of history and The Oar House is interesting, as is the Everglades Seafood Depot in the 1928 railroad station with its bountiful buffets; but I keep going back to the 20-year-old, wonderfully casual jumping-off platform leading to the stone crab capital of Florida, Chokoloskee, a couple of miles down the old road, and across from the dock where the boats voyage to the Ten Thousand Islands. In season, mid-October to mid-May, I hunker into a mass of cold crab claws, and out of season into other fresh seafood specialties of the house. There's fried everything but also shrimp scampi and grouper broiled or baked with green peppers, onions, tomatoes and lots of spices. Here's a good place to try gator tail as well as frog legs gigged in the Glades ($11.95-$17.95); but if your palate is landlocked, retreat to a boneless chicken breast or New York strip steak.

Robert Tolf, restaurant editor of Florida Trend since l973, has written some 50 books and guides covering a wide range of subjects. His latest is a history of the Stolt-Nielsen Company, international leader in parcel tanker transport, aquaculture and offshore support for the oil industry, to be published early next year.

Tolf's Top Picks

The Veranda, 2122 Second Street, Fort Myers. (239) 332-2065.

The Timbers Restaurant & Fish Market. 703 Tarpon Bay Road, Sanibel. (239) 395-CRAB.

St. George & the Dragon, Naples. 936 Fifth Avenue. (239) 262-6546.

Ridgway Bar & Grill, 1300 Third Street South, Naples. (239) 262-7999.

Bayside at Naples, 4270 Gulf Shore Blvd. North. (239) 649-5552.

Marek's Collier House Restaurant. 1121 Bald Eagle Drive, Marco Island. (239) 642-9948.

The Oyster House (Chokoloskee Causeway, Hwy. 29S. (239) 695-2073.